FERNDALE, Calif. — A large earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 jolted the Northern California coastline near Eureka on Tuesday morning, causing violent shaking that pushed some homes from their foundations and power outages affecting tens of thousands of people.
The earthquake occurred around 2:34 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday with the epicenter reported to be just offshore of Humboldt County — sending shock waves that were felt as far away as Redding to the east and the San Francisco Bay Area to the south. The hardest hit area appeared to be around the town of Rio Dell, though damage was reported in several surrounding towns, including in Fortuna and Eureka, state and local officials said late Tuesday morning.
Two people died “as a result of medical emergencies occurring during and/or just following the earthquake,” the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office announced around midday Tuesday. No further details were released about where those people died, or the circumstances of their deaths.
